


Laundry Day

by greenbirds



Category: Dragonriders of Pern - McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 03:16:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/37222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbirds/pseuds/greenbirds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Silvina ponders growing old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laundry Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/gifts).



It was a rhythm she had known since childhood, familiar as a Teaching Song.  The pins, the line, the fresh smell and the weight of the washing as she lifted it, shook it straight, hung it to dry in the early spring sun.  Her bones protested the drag of the wet fabric much as the girls had protested as she balanced the heavy basket on one hip and pushed through the doors into the cobbled courtyard.  It wasn’t her job, was beneath her station; really, someone younger ought to do it.  Shrugging off the protests of the younger women, she’d snapped back something about not being an old Auntie yet, and strode out into the bright courtyard. 

            Bowing to an old woman’s eccentricities and pride, they had let her, no doubt clucking their tongues and shaking their heads. 

            But really, this wasn’t about pride.  Silvina, Headwoman of the Harper Hall, _liked_ hanging out the washing.  She liked the warmth of the sun on her back, the quiet, even cadence of the task, the pleasant fatigue in her muscles.  She liked feeling the tides of the Harper Hall as they swirled and eddied around her.  Across the courtyard, a chorus of young men’s voices lustily chanted one of the long Sagas, punctuated with occasional pauses for correction, and an occasional burst of laughter.  Closer by, she could hear what must be an apprentice in a gitar lesson, his fingers fumbling on the last few bars of a tricky passage.  When – on the fifth try – he played it through cleanly, she smiled for him, thought a bit of applause in his direction.  Someone in an upper room played a soft melody on a pipe.

            Silvina was hanging kitchen towels, striped with red and white, when a pair of young journeymen passed through the courtyard, laughing and joking and shoving each other.  She paused, studying their strong, straight bodies, their unlined faces, their ungnarled hands.  Barely more than boys, with an entire lifetime yet to unroll before them.  A soft smile touched her face as she remembered another young Harper, not much these boys’ senior, who had once claimed her heart. 

            _I grow old, I grow old_, her mind echoed a phrase from an old song in a minor key, and for a moment Silvina was overcome by melancholy.  Her young Harper was now an old man, his face lined, his heart fragile.  Every morning her mirror revealed an old woman, shoulders stooping, hair more gray than dark, eyes and lips bracketed by the tiny lines of too many smiles and too much sun.  How had the years run out so quickly, slipping between their fingers like water?  Someday soon they might run out entirely, and there would be no more songs, no more hanging out the washing. 

            Feeling every creak in her bones, she bent to take the last towel from the basket, willing back the tears that were pricking her eyes.  _You’re a silly old woman, Silvina._ 

            The arms that stole around her waist from behind as she straightened startled her, and she bit off a girlish shriek at the sound of familiar, warm baritone laughter in her ear.  “Robinton,” she said, feeling her lips curve upward as he deposited a gentle kiss on top of her head.  Leaning back against his still-solid body, as birdsong and children’s voices rang out around them and the spring sun warmed the cobbles, Silvina suddenly felt possibilities welling up as the stream of years ran past. 

**Author's Note:**

> _I grow old, I grow old_: Actually, it's from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot, but who's counting? :)


End file.
